C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

Money is power, and without it, life is meaningless. In a country whose economy is in shambles, second-year economics university student Kimimaro Yoga understands this fact all too well, as he is surrounded by the relatively luxurious lives of his peers and struggling to make ends meet. However, his world is turned on its head when a stranger in a top hat arrives one late night at his door.

Going by the name Masakaki, the visitor petitions Yoga to come to the Eastern Financial District, a place where money flows in abundance if one offers their "future" as collateral. Although reluctant, greed triumphs reason and Yoga accepts the offer, thus taking on the mantle of an Entre. But unbeknownst to him, the land of wealth he has entered is an alternate realm built in the likeness of his own, where Entres are forced to participate in weekly duels called Deals, with their collateral at stake. Pitted against his countrymen and fate, Yoga must quickly adapt in this new world if he hopes to protect his fortune and future—and discover just how much money is truly worth.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Msyu Main

Tomatsu, Haruka Japanese

Yoga, Kimimaro Main

Uchiyama, Kouki Japanese

Mikuni, Souichirou Main

Hosomi, Daisuke Japanese

Masakaki Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Q Supporting

Gotou, Saori Japanese

Satou, Jennifer Supporting

Asano, Mayumi Japanese

Takedazaki, Shigeomi Supporting

Kikuchi, Masami Japanese

Sennoza, Kou Supporting

Kakihara, Tetsuya Japanese

Ikuta, Hanabi Supporting

Makino, Yui Japanese

Itaneda, Katsumi Supporting

Mitsuya, Yuuji Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Yamamoto, Kouji Producer, Chief Producer

Kimura, Makoto Producer

Kannae, Masahiro Producer

Reviews

Jun 25, 2011

animedork95

Recommended

I was surprised to see that most of the reviews for this anime rated it so low! I honestly thought it was a good anime!

Story: 8
The story is very original, the first with a setting and plot like this that I've ever seen. It does get confusing at points, especially near the end, but it really kept me entertained. I think it just needed a few more episodes to develop it more.

Art: 9
I really loved the art, it's just the kind I like ^^ I enjoyed how they made the creepy Midas guy (forgot his name ^^") kind of 3D, though it was a bit ... weird in the beginning and took some getting used to.

Characters: 8
I like how the main character honestly has no idea what the heck he was doing in the beginning, and how he and his asset interacted. I think there should have been more episodes (once again) so that there would have been better character development, and I would've liked to have seen Masyu and Kimimaro interact with each other more and to have seen more of their battles.

Overall: 8
This was a really entertaining anime. It requires a lot of thought, so if you aren't in the mood for a thinking anime, don't watch it. It has some action, but it's definately not a mainstream battle anime. It's interesting and has some cute little romance going on between the main chara and his asset. The only thing I really have to complain on is the ending. It just cut off. It seemed like a good 30 seconds or so was hacked off of the end. Other than that, I think it was a pretty good anime, and definately worth your time ^^

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jul 16, 2011

Activelee

Mixed Feelings

[C] The Lack of Responsible Spending and Viewer Sympathy

It’s clear from my reinterpretation of the title that I flat out didn’t like it. I sat through the season hoping it would get better as it went along. It didn’t. So to sum up what this show did wrong: Almost everything… except the central concept and opening/ending scores.

Honestly, this anime didn’t give me anything to justify my watching it. Other than its interesting premise of another world called the Financial District which controls and inevitably destroys the economy of each respective country in the physical world, there’s nothing else to see here. Our protagonist, Yoga, Kimimaro, ... is a kid with no drive to do anything productive with his life. Right off the bat, we’re presented with the generic “guy with no redeeming qualities” to play with. Mr. Boring here hates his dad, has no girlfriend because he was too much of a wuss to ask out his childhood friend, is an econ major, and works part time at a convenience store to pay for living expenses. His existence is double its original worth once he’s paid a strange visit by a guy named Masakaki.

Masakaki is actually kind of an interesting dude because he represents the law of the Financial District and is a guide to those introduced into this new world. There’s not one of him as each District has their own Masakaki of sorts. Throughout the anime, he pops up several times to inform people of major events going on and announce duels between those involved in the District.

There’s a plethora of supporting characters but I’m getting too long-winded as it is with just the main ones to detail the rest so I’ll tell you now that the show isn’t worth watching for them. Msyu is Kimimaro’s Asset and eventual love interest. Blehh. Jennifer is an exec of IMF, an organization attempting to bring down the Financial District. She, for some reason, is always eating burgers when she’s out investigating. Hanabi is the childhood friend mentioned earlier. Takedazaki is an informant in the District and general creeper with a crazy laugh.

Now, everyone part of this other world uses something called midas money to duel others and spend in the real world which is why it gets screwed over. Apparently, almost all of them are money grubbers who only fight for their own benefit. Of course, bringing “fake” money into circulation in mass quantities throws off the balance of the economy. I won’t delve too deep into the logistics because they don’t matter and I don’t fully understand the system myself. Each person has an Asset which is like… an astral being?... I don’t know, anyway, they represent their respective owner’s future and they fight in battles (duels) against other Assets like their goddamn Pokémon or something. And the whole micro-, mezo-, macro- flation based attacks are just silly. There’s a bunch of other stuff that happens in between the fighting but it’s irrelevant to the overall scheme of things. For example, you don’t find out what C is until the end. The hell?

The show doesn’t do an adequate job of explaining anything in enough detail to really understand what’s going on at any given time. As the story progresses, it gets more convoluted once you see cities digitizing into nothing along with the people inhabiting them. Countries disappear by ways of economic collapse. Organizations inside and outside the Districts have a hand in abusing midas currency, trying to prevent the future loss of nations, or attempting to preserve the present condition of those same nations. The antagonist, Souichirou, is an advocate for the present. He’s a suave businessman who holds a lot of influence in Japan as he’s at the top of the chain in the Far East District. He blames his father for the death of his sister because he prioritized his company over family. Ironically, Souichirou’s ideals become more like his dad’s after the event in that he starts believing money is power. To me though, he’s just a kid with a lot of toys but wants to play with everyone else’s. A stubborn man who pushes his values onto others because that’s the only way he knows to gain control over everything and mold Japan to his liking because he doesn’t believe in a future anymore.

In the art and sound department, [C] tries to blend 3D and 2D animation together, like in the case of duels. However, sometimes they don’t blend too well and it just starts to feel disjointed. The character and Asset designs are pretty ordinary. Although, some of the Assets are definitely more out there than others in both looks and abilities. Now as far as songs go, I enjoyed them both. The rock opening paired with the fluid animation of currency falling from the sky and flythrough into the streets of the Financial District got me pumped up for what was to come but obviously the anime itself fell short of what the songs did to hype it up for. And the endings electronic beats, percussion, and great vocals served as a great way to close each episode as the show was in a way an RPG considering how Yoga and Msyu fought tougher opponents each time to eventually end up going against Mikuni, the BOSS if you will. I think partly why I fancied the ending score was because it reminded me of East of Eden’s ending for some strange reason. The voice acting was sufficient when it was in Japanese and god awful when they started speaking English. Seriously, everything was terrible when it came to the English talk. I’ll leave it at that and you can see for yourself if you still feel the urge to hear it firsthand. Fair warning, you could be audibly raped.

My final grumbles about [C] is that I couldn’t relate to anyone or anything in the show and that made it so every emotional event that was supposed to evoke something out of me just failed miserably. Msyu losing limbs and crying out in agony didn’t even make me blink because I knew that she’d regenerate right once the duel was over. Kimimaro’s attempts to be heroic were not only boring but obvious and as a result I started liking him even less as a character. His existence value started at zero and doubling a zero is still only zero. My indifference towards it all was mostly due to the weak character development as you can tell. Msyu was probably the only one whose character evolved (not a Pokémon joke) within the story and that’s only because she didn’t know anything about being human until Kimimaro came around and ate ramen noodles in front of her. I know, right? Eating?! That’s insane!

Ultimately, what this anime boils down to is its lack of any real flow to the plot and missed attempt at drawing emotion out of the viewers whilst giving us a crash course in finances which to say it didn’t do a good job of that either. Maybe, and I’m being generous here, if they didn’t do such a horrendous job of mimicking English speakers, I’d give it one score higher. Maybe. But if time was currency, I’d definitely spend it on something else worth my attention.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jun 23, 2011

Cobbles

Not Recommended

Prior to the initial airing of [C], I was really hyped for it because the director attached to it was Kenji Nakamura. Other notable anime on his resume were Mononoke and Trapeze (Kuchuu Buranko) and both were really good anime. They were eccentric, visually stunning, well executed pieces of animation. Most importantly it really highlighted Nakamura’s diversity as a director since Mononoke was at heart a mystery series with slight horror elements and Trapeze was an eccentric comedy about people with mental disorders. The only real element they shared was a sense of surreality. Then we got rumors of [C]: The Money of Soul and ... Possibility Control, a supposed anime that dealt with topics related to the state of the current economy in a battle anime-esque way. This was totally the kind of anime I thought Nakamura would direct since the premise sounded fresh and original and it was in the noitaminA timeslot which basically meant that the concept of the show wouldn’t be gutted in favor of appealing to a broader audience. The only real notable difference here was that the production studio was Tatsunoko, where Mononoke and Trapeze were done by Toei. I didn’t really think this would be a big factor in the larger scheme of things so I brushed it aside and began getting immensely hyped. And at the end of this little rainbow all I ended up with was a pot of bitter disappointment and frustration. [C] doesn’t fall short of Mononoke or Trapeze, it runs off a cliff and gets impaled on the rocks below. Not only is it disappointing in that regard but it doesn’t even manage to have many redeeming aspects, if any at all.

Now let’s deal with the least offensive part of [C] and that’s the plot. The premise involves a student named Yoga trying to tough out the hard times and getting through life in an economy that seems to working against everyone. Cutting corners to save costs, working multiple jobs and getting good grades on top of that, yeah none of us are ever really ready to deal with the hurdles that comes with pursuing tertiary education after high school. Let’s not even deal with romance and finding a girlfriend/boyfriend in addition. This is one of the few things [C] does right and that’s creating an initially relatable main character that the audience can sympathize with. Unfortunately that’s where the good things stop with [C], the premise and the first episode is probably the best part of the show and I’m not kidding at all. We then get to the meat of the story and that involves a magical dimension in the middle of the city called the “Financial District” where people fight out battles called “Deals” with pokem-err I mean“Assets”. If they win they get some Midas Money and if they lose, their future disappears. Now in terms of actual plot, [C] has a bunch of pacing issues and a narrative that goes nowhere until the last couple of episodes. Everything the audience needs to know is given to us in the first two episodes and the driving force of the plot only shows up at the end. There’s a good flashback episode in the middle but that’s pretty much character related. You have a good chunk of the middle which revolves around Yoga fighting other people and their story but ultimately none of this stuff ever adds anything to the narrative. You could argue that they’re there to characterize Yoga but that’s pointless since Yoga doesn’t grow as a character throughout the show. They play on the redundant “What am I fighting for/What do I want to protect” theme that nearly every anime arbitrarily slaps on to characters they don’t know what to do with. There’s also a concurrent plotline that deals with Yoga’s dad but even that is done in a half-assed way. You have Yoga agonizing over several episodes on why his dad supposedly abandoned his family when the whole goddamn answer is so obvious in the first place. The way Yoga treats it as an epiphany is even more annoying, really why would a father ever fight to win money? COULD IT POSSIBLY BE BECAUSE OF HIS FAMILY? But nah that answer is too high-brow for the audience, might as well pad it out for a couple of episodes. It’s such lazy way of delivering a frankly boring plot point anyway especially since Yoga doesn’t learn anything from it. To make things even worse, Yoga never ends up doing anything on his own accord. Even at the end, he’s fighting because someone else told him to, not because he reached that answer himself. That’s the problem of creating a character based on a motive like “Protecting something” without any real elaboration. Yoga comes off as nothing but the standard battle shounen lead except it’s played completely straight. He’s barely a character on his own and whatever possibilities there are initially end up being completely wasted.

Speaking of other major characters, the only other remotely interesting one is the series antagonist, Mikuni. He contrasts Yoga’s blind sheep idealism with a stark amount of pragmatism. He drives all the action in the plot and has the most characterization out of the entire cast. Honestly I believe that [C] was initially written with Mikuni as the main character instead of Yoga, yet in order to make the anime more appealing they had to shoehorn a younger character in because lol anime. If you check out some of the groundwork on [C], most of the concept art and notes focus on Mikuni. On the other hand Msyu, Masakaki and Jennifer are just walking archetypes with one gimmick they play over and over again in place of actual characterization. The only other memorable supporting characters are the professor and the charity worker but they’re only around for an episode and again, they don’t add anything to overall narrative. This is a problem since the show has an overarching plot yet it tries to be almost episodic and these different narrative structures clash horribly. Generally the writing is the definition of mediocre. It’s got some good ideas, but never elaborates on them and whatever aspects it does elaborate on are wholly uninteresting. Also there is virtually no economics in this anime, unless you count naming attacks “Micro, Macro or Mezzo” economics related. It tries to use this angle to cover up just how shallow the entire battles are. There’s a bit with hyperinflation at the end yet it doesn’t make any sense in the context it’s used in. If you’re expecting something like Spice & Wolf, don’t bother since [C] uses fantasy economics because it’s a battle anime that fails at making any relevant or meaningful social commentary.

Possibly the most damning aspect of [C] is the animation, composition and general scene layout. Even if [C] has some lackluster and boring writing, it still could have been a decent watch if the visual fidelity was on the level of the Nakamura’s previous works. Yet in the end, [C] had some of the worst cinematography I’ve seen in an anime in quite a while. The cuts and composition for each scene are not just bland or boring, they’re awkward and jarring. You have a cut of Yoga and Msyu fighting someone else and we’re getting to the climactic end yet THE FUCKING SHOW DECIDES TO CUT AWAY AT THE LAST MOMENT AND PROCEDES TO SHOW THE AFTERMATH. Really. Now yes, this style was used in Mononoke and Trapeze but it had significance there. The jarring cuts in those shows were there to play off of their quirky and artsy visual style AND most importantly they built tension in Mononoke (because it had strong mystery and horror aspects) and those same cuts really magnified the surrealism and comedy in Trapeze. It has no place being in [C], because this anime’s composition is incredibly plain. You’ll have cuts of Yoga walking across the street yet we see it cut to him being on one side, in the middle than at the other side with not much animation in between. It has no meaning and it’s obviously there to hide whatever shoestring budget this anime was made on. Truthfully Mononoke and Trapeze didn’t have great animation either yet they hid that with clever scene layouts, angles and composition. Mononoke for example still had some breathtaking cuts that were animated beautifully. Just compare the last five minutes of its fifth episode to all of [C], the difference is like night and day. Not only that but [C]’s animation is genuinely terrible, the laughable running cut in the first fight should tip you off, or rather smack you over the head with it. All the fights have bad animation; I cannot understand why they would want to make a battle show if they didn’t want to spend money on it. There were some cuts done by notable animators such as Sushio and Ryochimo but in the end their cuts only exemplified how bad the scene layouts and storyboards were. Even their animation didn’t make any of the fights more interesting or exciting. Ironically enough, it seems all the good animation was saved for the final episode and while it’s alright, it still doesn’t excuse the utter mediocrity of the other 10 episodes.

To top it all off, [C] has some atrocious aesthetics. The character designs are bland and uninspired, and the color palette clashes with the CGI work (incredibly frustrating since Mononoke had just as much CGI but the difference was that [C]’s is a fucking pink elephant in the room). You have entire cuts that are done in CGI, even the characters and it sticks out like a sore thumb. There really is no excuse for such poor visual fidelity, it’s fairly obvious that Tatsunoko did not give Nakamura the creative liberty he had with his previous works and they also gave him a pretty bad staff to work with. The musical score is non-existent except for in the last couple of episodes and the voice-work only makes the characters more lifeless than they already are.

So after all those bitter tears, is [C] worth watching? No, especially if you’re watching this because of Nakamura. I admit, I’m being biased against it because I had lofty expectations yet [C] never becomes anything more than mediocre in all of its 11 episodes. The writing is contradictory, the visuals are horrible, and so it doesn’t really do anything that deserves praise. If you want an intelligent fighting anime, you’re not gonna find it here. Hell if you want something quirky and Nakamura-esque, you’ll definitely leave this anime with a bad taste in your mouth.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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